The Little Things That Shape My Life

 By John Vlahouthis, Marina Tzelepi and Joanna Tsakmakidou   

 

There are ten things in my life that I could never live without because they give meaning and joy to my everyday routine. My family and friends are the most important since they help me, and stay by my side during rough times. I also need my phone and the internet because they help me communicate and learn new things. Music and books make my life more beautiful, helping me relax and escape from reality for a while. Humans invented endless technology just to avoid boredom and awkward silence. A strangely impressive achievement.

   Food, water and sleep are also important because they keep me healthy and strong. Exercise gives me energy and makes me feel better both physically and mentally. Finally, I can’t live without my dreams and goals because they inspire me to continue trying for a better future. All these things together create the small but valuable world that makes me who I truly am. 

Is AI more human than us?

 

 by Sismanidou Valentini

With the ongoing rise of social media, there’s been a recent romanticization of general human apathy. Certain behaviors such as acting “nonchalant”, and shaming emotions, naming them “cringe” is a perfect example of how there’s a new upcoming trend where showing disinterest in feeling and promoting emotional avoidance is labeled as the new cool.

 

Where does AI come in? With all this riot about emotional disconnection, simultaneously there’s been a new-found popularity regarding AI chat apps. People no longer use AI for knowledge, but rather to stimulate human interaction.

 

Apps such as character.ai, and even cases we’ve seen with chat gpt, are apps coded to respond to you kindly, and behave just like a human, only the AI does it better.

 

As life inside the screen becomes more normalized, people lose track of the fact that there’s real people sitting behind the keyboard. We’ve dehumanized ourselves, which has only led to more crewed humor towards serious topics, and in general more violence and impoliteness across the real-life world. This situation isn’t only affecting our social media, but the problems are starting to leak into our reality as well.

 

These apps threaten to destroy us as a society. Humans are differentiated from animals due to their complex emotional thinking. If we’ve grown more cold, selfish and apathetic, and AI has gotten better at preforming acts of warmth, selflessness, and empathy, is it so far-stretched to say AI has become more human than us?

 

In the not-so-far-away-future, I believe we as a species will completely dishonour the meaning of real human connection. We will begin building friendships with technology, and even go as far as falling in love with it. It’s already happening within these chat apps, and it’s been a topic in cinema for ages, thus, who’s to say it won’t become reality?

 

Overall, I don’t think there’s a way to come back from this. We are evolving technology and artificial intelligence rapidly, faster than the critical thinking of an average person. Maybe we should stop pointing the finger at tech all-together, and instead point it at ourselves…